Soaring Through Space (Groovy Electronic Music with Dan Bau Samples)

Описание

A song I made with various affected and chopped up samples, particularly dan bau and acapella (beatboxing/clapping/etc.) samples. Everything's a sample other than the bass. It's very groovy and cheerful, so enjoy!

For the harmony, since dan bau is harmonics and bends, I decided to use this chord concept I thought of with the 4-9 harmonic series scale (I think it could be called that; the intervals are 1/1, 9/8, 5/4, 3/2, 7/4, 2/1). The chords are only in the chorus though.

TL;DR: This started with a concept for creating chords that outline the pentatonic modes in 12 edo with pretty cool voice leading, and then I transferred that idea to the 4-9 harmonic series scale. I added lots of bends, embellishments, and a major 6th in parts as a kind of passing tone.

The concept originated from an idea I had when I was mostly working with 12 edo. I was learning about how traditional Chinese music makes heavy use of the pentatonic modes, and what struck me most as interesting, as a somewhat beginner in harmony, was that some of the scales didn't have thirds, and one of them didn't have a 5th, but they all had their own unique character. Specifically G A C D E G didn't have a third, but it sounded quite happy, almost party-ish, but seemed more neutral and chill sounding than the major pentatonic scale. Anyway I wanted to make chords with these tonalities that would fit in with the music I was doing at the time. There were a few ideas that I had, but they sounded a bit disjointed, which is good and bad, but I wanted to have the option to make it smoother. Anyway, during jazz college, I learned 2 concepts that helped facilitate this idea: jazz shell voicings (omitting the 5th generally and creating smooth voice leading with the 3rds and 7ths), and quartal and quintal harmony. I realized that 2 of these modes had a 4 note quintal stack, 2 of them had a 4 note quartal stack, and one of them had a 3 note quartal stack and a 3 note quintal stack. These outlined that pentatonic tonality, but they don't voice lead at all, so I decided to see how the voice leading was if I omitted the 4ths and 5ths in relation to the root. this gave each chord either a major 9th and major 6th ("major", quintal), a minor third and a minor 7th ("minor", quartal) or a major 9th and a minor 7th ("neutral", hybrid), instead of 3rds and 7ths. Any chord voice lead to any chord with motion of a minor 3rd or a major 2nd, or unison, which made only some of the chords disjointed, and only a bit, in a way that just made the tonality/sonority more interesting when used carefully. They made very pretty chords that mapped the pentatonic sonority/tonality pretty nicely. Also, they have no avoid notes, so that's pretty cool. Since in Chinese harmony they use diatonic passing tones, and I was also mixing this with jazz, I decided to add different types of extensions and passing tones in the chords based on the genre I was going for, and make the melody/ostinatos based around the pentatonic scales but with lots of embellishments and bends and whatnot add to the world music quality. They worked for indie-pop, funk, folk, etc.

Anyway, there as a song with a Guqin that when I heard it, it sounded like parts of the song were replacing the major 6th with a harmonic 7th. I asked around and it turns out that's probably not the case. But when I used the theory above but sharpened and flattened notes to make it into the 4-9 harmonic series scale, it sounded really cool and made a few different but very floaty vibes, and then all of the chords were slightly different. But like major pentatonic scale, all of the notes in this scale are relatively harmonious with each other, so it can be used the same way. I might try to find more scales like these two to use with this concept. In later stuff I'll probably use some cool xen passing tones and extensions in the chords. There's I think a major 6th somewhere in this song as a passing tone.